With the spread of printers, analog copying machines, digital copying machines, printers, and the like employing electrophotography, ink-jet recording methods, and thermal transfer recording methods, a large amount of paper has been consumed. Paper generally used as recording materials is made from pulp gained from wood as recyclable resources. In a process for manufacturing paper, a lot of energy is consumed so as to extract cellulose fiber from wood in a pulping process and to dry paper in a papermaking step.
Although destructive lumbering for manufacturing paper has been reduced because of growing awareness of environmental issues, all paper is not made from wood logged from managed forests, so that it is an important social issue to prevent further deterioration of the global environment by protecting forests through control on paper consumption.
Further, because paper contains inorganic components which are noncombustible and imputrescible, when paper is disposed of, waste requiring landfilling is generated at a certain rate. However, it has become difficult to find waste landfill sites, so that the control on paper consumption is an important social issue also in this point of view.
In order to deal with these problems, in conventional methods, when paper on which information is recorded is no longer necessary, such paper is collected and dissolved into pulp at paper factories for recycling. Although these methods require no wood resources any further, substantially the same energy is consumed for transportation for collection, re-pulping, and re-papermaking as in a case where paper is manufactured from fresh pulp. Moreover, paper made from recycled pulp has quality problems such as reduced rigidity and whiteness, bleeding upon printing, and the like, so that a mix rate of recycled pulp in high-quality paper conventionally used as paper for recording information must be limited to about 30%. Further, upon collecting and recycling paper as recording materials on which information is recorded, paper on which information is recorded is circulated outside companies and outside homes which are uncontrolled areas, so that this poses problems in terms of confidentiality maintenance and privacy protection.
In recent years, management of information such as personal information has been strictly required, and it is desired that recording materials having information be not distributed outside each of information control areas including rooms, floors, divisions, buildings, offices, and the like.
As a method for resolving the above-mentioned problems, there have been proposed a method and a device for removing an image on a recording material that has been used so as to reuse the recording material. For example, as a method for removing a formed image on a recording material by transferring the image to an image peeling member, Patent Document 1 discloses a method and a device in which paper on which an image is formed by electrophotography is impregnated with liquid containing water, the paper and the image peeling member are brought into pressure contact in a heated status while adhesion between the paper to be used as a recording material and an image forming substance is reduced, and the image forming substance having thermoplasticity is separated and removed from the paper.
Patent Document 2 discloses a recording material having a mold release agent on a surface having a sheet-like shape, in which a mark is attached so as to discriminate from regular paper. Patent Document 3 discloses a device in which an endless belt having heat-melting resin on a surface thereof is used and an image formed on a recording material processed using release agent is separated and removed by thermal transfer. Patent Documents 4 and 5 disclose a method and a device in which an image on a recording material is removed by abrading and polishing the image using a grinding stone, a rubber roller, and the like so as to reuse the recording material on which the image is formed by electrophotography.
Other than the above-mentioned methods, there have been proposed various types of methods for removing or eliminating color of images. However, in any of these methods, applicable image forming substances, recording materials, image formation processes are limited when images are desired to be completely removed. Thus, when a recording material on which an image is formed by various types of image formation apparatuses is mixed in an image removal device, or various types of recording materials are mixed in the image removal device, depending on combinations other than specific combinations, levels of removal and color elimination of images are reduced, so that image information remaining after an image removal process may be readable or a number of times allowed for repeatedly using the recording materials may be reduced.
Patent Documents 5, 6, and 7 disclose examples of using the image formation apparatus and the image removal device integrally or in combination. In these Patent Documents, images are recorded on recording materials immediately after the image forming substances are removed by the image removal device from the recording materials.
As disclosed in these Patent Documents, by using the image formation apparatus and the image removal device integrally or in a connected manner, the necessity of setting again the recording materials in the image formation apparatus is eliminated. However, it is not possible to prevent mixing of recording materials other than those having an image formed by a specific image formation apparatus.
In Patent Document 8, the applicant proposed an image formation and removal system in which only a specific recording material on which an image is formed in a specific image formation process by a specific image formation apparatus is subjected to an image removal process, so that image forming substances on the recording material are securely removed and it is possible to prevent generation of jam and the like resulting from failure of separation of the recording material and an image peeling member which may be occurred in a process for removing the image forming substances.
However, even when the image formation apparatus and the image removal device are integrated, few proposal to sufficiently utilize characteristics of the integrated image formation apparatus and the image removal device has been made.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 7-56472
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 4-67043
Patent Document 3: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 4-64472
Patent Document 4: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 4-234056
Patent Document 5: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 6-89068
Patent Document 6: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 10-171318
Patent Document 7: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 7-175384
Patent Document 8: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2005-128046